Is There a Role for Environmental and Metabolic Factors Predisposing to Severe COVID-19?

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Stefan R. Bornstein - , Department of Internal Medicine III, Nanyang Technological University, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, King's College London (KCL), University Hospital Zurich (Author)
  • Karin Voit-Bak - , INUS Tagesklinikum-Cham (Author)
  • Dieter Schmidt - , INUS Tagesklinikum-Cham (Author)
  • Henning Morawietz - , Department of Internal Medicine III, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Alexander Benjamin Bornstein - , University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, Department of Internal Medicine 3 (Author)
  • Waldimir Balanzew - , Department of Internal Medicine III, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Ulrich Julius - , University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, Department of Internal Medicine 3 (Author)
  • Roman N. Rodionov - , Department of Internal Medicine III, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Anne Maria Biener - , Department of Internal Medicine III, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Jun Wang - , University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, Department of Internal Medicine 3 (Author)
  • Klaus Martin Schulte - , King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Australian National University (Author)
  • Peter Krebs - , Chair of Urban Water Management (Author)
  • Günter Vollmer - , Chair of Molecular Cell Physiology and Endocrinology (Author)
  • R. Straube - , INUS Tagesklinikum-Cham (Author)

Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic affects people around the world. However, there have been striking differences in the number of infected individuals and deaths in different countries. Particularly, within Central Europe in countries that are similar in ethnicity, age, and medical standards and have performed similar steps of containment, such differences in mortality rates remain inexplicable. We suggest to consider and explore environmental factors to explain these intriguing variations. Countries like Northern Italy, France, Spain, and UK have suffered from 5 times more deaths from the corona virus infection than neighboring countries like Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Denmark related to the size of their respective populations. There is a striking correlation between the level of environmental pollutants including pesticides, dioxins, and air pollution such as NO 2known to affect immune function and healthy metabolism with the rate of mortality in COVID-19 pandemic in these European countries. There is also a correlation with the use of chlorination of drinking water in these regions. In addition to the improvement of environmental protective programs, there are possibilities to lower the blood levels of these pollutants by therapeutic apheresis. Furthermore, therapeutic apheresis might be an effective method to improve metabolic inflammation, altered vascular perfusion, and neurodegeneration observed as long-term complications of COVID-19 disease.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)540-546
Number of pages7
JournalHormone and metabolic research
Volume52
Issue number7
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2020
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 32599638
ORCID /0000-0001-9360-9736/work/170107834

Keywords

Keywords

  • apheresis, chlorinated water, COVID-19, environmental pollution